Sunday, July 29, 2012

(UPDATE) AP's reporter sent me a tweet saying "Even though the opening says "thousands", "10,000" is mentioned in the article and even the event with 200,000 people is mentioned in the article." Yes they are, and that's what I quoted below. I'm asking her why the opening was "thousands".

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Photo from Mainichi, showing part of the crowd that may have been "several thousands" to "200,000" (Mainichi has 11 photographs of the protest at their site):

TOKYO (AP) — Thousands of people formed "a human chain" around Japan's parliament complex Sunday to demand the government abandon nuclear power — the latest in a series of peaceful demonstrations on a scale not seen in the nation for decades.

The reporter Yuri Kageyama notes later in the article that July 16 protest in Yoyogi Park drew "nearly 200,000" thanks to celebrities leading the pack, and says the Sunday crowd was smaller:

Similar demonstrations have been held outside the prime minister's residence every Friday evening. The crowds have not dwindled, as people get the word out through Twitter and other online networking. A July 16 holiday rally at a Tokyo park, featuring a rock star and a Nobel laureate, drew nearly 200,000 people.

The crowd appeared to be smaller Sunday. Kyodo News service estimated it at about 10,000 people. Participants said they came from across Japan, underlining the widespread appeal of the protests.

Reuters's foreign reporters in Tokyo says "tens of thousands", and also notes the defeat of an anti-nuclear candidate in the gubernatorial election in Yamaguchi Prefecture held on July 29:

TOKYO (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people protested against nuclear power outside Japan's parliament on Sunday, the same day a proponent of using renewable energy to replace nuclear following the Fukushima disaster was defeated in a local election.

The protesters, including old-age pensioners, pressed up against a wall of steel thrown up around the parliament building shouting, "We don't need nuclear power" and other slogans.

On the main avenue leading to the assembly, the crowd broke through the barriers and spilled onto the streets, forcing the police to bring in reinforcements and deploy armored buses to buttress the main parliament gate.

The Metropolitan Police says (remember, there is no "official" number form the police on any demonstration) "ten and several thousands", according to Mainichi. TBS says "15,000", quoting their police source.

The organizers, who discouraged people from showing up on Friday to concentrate on the July 29 event, says "200,000". One of the organizers tweeted that she was going to focus on media handling (giving interviews) at the event, but did see the actual protest.

She was also tweeting about the Friday protest that she and her friends disapproved of, saying the number of 2,800 was "just about right", to which others responded by saying that was just too low.

Interestingly, unlike the previous protests at the PM Official Residence on Fridays, BBC and NPR (National Public Radio in the US) have been reporting this particular protest repeatedly. I wonder if someone has gotten smarter and is contacting the foreign media to prompt better coverage.

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comments:

This is so great to see our Japanese friends standing up! Thank you Ex-SKF for reporting!

By the way, German Spiegel has a short breaking news article titled "After Fukushima: Japanese anti-nuclearists found Green Party"

I translate the important part of the article here:

"Environmental activists and anti-nuclearists have founded a Green Party in Japan. After the Fukushima catastrophe, the new political power wants to fight for the environment and to set up candidates for the next parliamentary election.

Tokio. It is a reaction to the devastating catastrophe of Fukushima in March 2011. On Saturday environmental activists and anti-nuclearists have founded a Green Party in Japan. At the founding congress at Tokio the new vice leader Akira Miyabe said that Japan needs a party that fights for implementation of decisively environmental-friendly politics."

You see why several German reactors have been upgraded to pre-heat the emergency cooling water to avoid the RPV crack like a glass when pouring in hot water.Do the Genkai nuclearists also pre-heat the cooling water, or do they just hope the RPV won't shatter in case of emergency cooling?(BTW, Genkai is probably not the only embrittlement affected reactor)

Thanks Atomfritz for the link. I'll take a look. I think Genkai may be preheating, or they should. The temperature at which the crack may occur for one of the reactors at Genkai (if I remember right) is over 90 degrees Celsius.

Anon, I'll try. So far, very little info, and no words from these organizers.

In Kagoshima prefecture too the pro nuke candidate recently won. Can anyone explain this? 70% of the Japanese think there is no need to hurry to restart the reactors and pro nuke politicians get elected one after another??Beppe

Yamaguchi is far from Fukushima; they were not as personally traumatized as the citizens in eastern and northern Japan.

LDP has enjoyed very strong base of support for many years, especially in rural areas. The anti-nuke candidate was running against the LDP incumbent as an independent, with essentially no party support.

Yamaguchi voters may not view this as a one-issue election.

LDP candidate did not voice a pro-Nuke opinion. I recall reading somewhere that his position had shifted away from pushing nuclear to more of a middle road voice.

And of course there is the old stand-by when dealing with entrenched political parties - how many dead people voted...

About my coverage of Japan Earthquake of March 11

I am Japanese, and I not only read Japanese news sources for information on earthquake and the Fukushima Nuke Plant but also watch press conferences via the Internet when I can and summarize my findings, adding my observations.

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Well, this was, until March 11, 2011. Now it is taken over by the events in Japan, first earthquake and tsunami but quickly by the nuke reactor accident. It continues to be a one-person (me) blog, and I haven't even managed to update the sidebars after 5 months... Thanks for coming, spread the word.------------------This is an aggregator site of blogs coming out of SKF (double-short financials ETF) message board at Yahoo.

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